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My story
My name is Ruben Hanssen, an urbanist, videographer and educator living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
My story begins in the historical town of Leiden. The same town where a young Rembrandt once lived and which observatory was regularly visited by Einstein. The winding, medieval streets of this charming city made a lasting impression on me and set the standard for what a city could be: walkable and cycling friendly, lively yet peaceful, and most of all: beautiful.
Amsterdam
After graduating high school I moved to Amsterdam. With an interest in urban development and design, my Bachelor’s in Urban Planning at the University of Amsterdam was a logical choice. Learning about land use, the environment, social geography, infrastructure and planning law gave me a solid foundation of knowledge which I would later use for my development in the world of urbanism. Enjoying life in Amsterdam, I started my first photography & film business This enterprise, Synck Productions, proved to be the beginning of a lifelong passion for photography.
After graduating from the University of Amsterdam, I decided to move to Delft, to pursue my Master’s in Urbanism (Urban Design) via a bridging program at Delft University of Technology. The competitive, creative atmosphere at the Faculty of Architecture motivated me greatly. Once I completed the bridging program, I spent half a year as a competitive rower at the Delft rowing club LAGA, before starting my Master’s.
DELFT
During my time in Delft, I proceeded to finish my Master’s in Urbanism. During my graduation in 2017, my final project was focused on the implementation of Virtual Reality in Urban Design. The project was called “VRBANISM,” a combination of “Virtual Reality” and “Urbanism”, and the aim was to use VR to design an urban environment at ‘eye level’.
AMSTERDAM, PART DEUX
After graduating with my Master’s degree, I moved back to Amsterdam and co-founded VRBANISM. This start-up was focused on the use of Virtual Reality as a tool to inform stakeholders about urban development projects through immersive VR experiences.
WITTEVEEN+BOS
In 2019 I began working for Witteveen+Bos, a civil engineering consulting firm. Witteveen+Bos focuses on engineering consulting in over 10 countries. They specialize in civil engineering, infrastructure, water management and urban/ environment design. Their projects are renowned and highly acclaimed around the world. Our team worked on digital visualisation tools used to inform stakeholders and clients, like Augmented and Virtual Reality.
The Aesthetic City
In 2020, COVID changed the world. During this time I slowly came to the realisation that I wanted to have a bigger impact on our world. In 2021, I decided to take a sabbatical and left Witteveen+Bos. That same year I founded The Aesthetic City, first as a Twitter account, but I soon started a podcast and later a YouTube channel.
I became interested in the world of new urbanism, traditional urban design and architecture, and I haven’t looked back since.
With The Aesthetic City, I now try to show the world that we are still able to create beautiful, livable urban spaces and have reached an audience of millions of people through our YouTube videos, Instagram account and podcast.
In 2022 I became one of the founders of the Utrecht Summer School for Traditional and Classical Architecture and Urban Design, ‘Let’s Build a Beautiful City’, which has been a great success and has seen three iterations.
